Dog Blood

MARK HAD TO FIND more food. He didn’t want to think about what would happen if he didn’t. Impossible choices would have to be made. How could it have come to this? Kate had to eat, she was his obvious priority, but who next? Gurmit Singh could go to hell as far as he was concerned, but what about Kate’s parents? Her dad was in his late seventies, her mom not much younger… could they really justify wasting precious supplies on them at their age? Christ, what was he thinking? Leaving them to starve? He himself needed to eat because he couldn’t stand the thought of Katie and their child trying to survive in this nightmare world without him. Then there was Lizzie. What was her position in the pecking order? As for that thing she kept tied up in the bathroom… Mark cursed the day he’d agreed to let her stay with them.

The hotel room diagonally opposite 33 was empty. He’d heard noises there a while earlier and had watched through the peephole in his door as the occupants had fled. He wasn’t sure exactly what had happened; someone cracking under the pressure of this impossible situation and being hunted down as a Hater, he guessed. The soldiers hadn’t come to investigate (they never did anymore), and there were at least two bodies still in the room, but he didn’t care. As soon as he’d seen the rest of them thunder down the stairs in panic, he’d known he’d have a couple of minutes to get in there, strip out anything of value, then get out before other refugees claimed the precious space.

Mark felt like an amateur forensics investigator trying to piece together a murder scene as he stood in the small room and stepped over the first corpse. It was a mirror image of the room where he and the others were living. A woman lay on the floor, her face pallid and gray, savage welts, bruises, and scratches covering her neck. In the opposite corner, a man who he’d assumed was either her partner or her brother sat slumped with blood pouring out of razor slashes across his throat and wrists. The cuts were still dripping. He was the one who’d snapped, Mark assumed. Looked like he’d taken his sudden aggression out on the woman, then killed himself with regret. Another pointless waste of lives.

No time for sentimentality. He began searching for food, looking in the corresponding hiding places to those he used himself in the room across the hall. There were a few scraps; nothing much, but it was better than going back empty-handed. At least he’d be able to-

A piercing scream cut through the uneasy silence. He knew immediately that it was coming from room 33. He grabbed the food and ran, tripping over the outstretched legs of the dead woman as he frantically sprinted back. He already knew what was happening. He could hear her. She was loose.

Mark reached for the door and pushed it at the exact same moment Gurmit Singh pulled it open from the other side. In a single movement he raced into the room, dragging Singh back inside and kicking the door shut behind him. He couldn’t risk him getting out and telling anyone what they were keeping in here, not that they’d be able to understand him anyway.

The kid was on the bed, naked but for a dirty gray undershirt, her wrists still bound together with a plastic tie but her legs free. Her tiny hands were wrapped around Kate’s father’s throat, and she was repeatedly yanking his head up, then slamming him back against the wooden headboard. Kate and Lizzie both tried to pull her off the old man, but she refused to let go, her small but strong clawlike fingers digging into his skin and holding on. Mark pushed them both aside and wrapped his arms around the little Hater’s waist. He backed away from the bed, dragging both the girl and the old man with him. Lizzie pried her daughter’s fingers off Kate’s father’s scrawny neck, then shoved him back up onto the mattress. Behind her Kate’s mother screamed, a constant, vile, eardrum-piercing, high-pitched wail of absolute terror and bewilderment.

“What the hell happened?” Mark asked between grunts of effort as he struggled to hold on to Ellis. He wrapped his arms tighter around her chest, restricting her movement. She leaned her head forward and bit down into his forearm; the sleeve of his thick jacket protected his skin. “Where’s her fucking gag gone?”

Before anyone could answer, Ellis jerked her head back again, cracking against Mark’s chin. He bit down hard on his tongue and yelped with pain. Less than half his size, she continued to move relentlessly and with incredible ferocity, refusing to give up despite the fact that, for now, he had her held tight. He knew that if her hands hadn’t been tied, several-if not all-of the people in the hotel room would almost certainly have been killed.

Ellis made another desperate bid for freedom, arching her back, then relaxing, doing it again and then kicking her feet back, catching Mark full in the balls on the rebound. She managed to wedge her foot against the nearest wall and pushed, the sudden movement catching him by surprise and sending him reeling backward. The sickening thud as he slammed against the opposite wall made him lose his grip. Ellis squirmed away from him and raced back into the room toward the old people in the bed, but Kate was waiting for her. She smashed her across the face with a heavy telephone directory. Stunned, Ellis dropped to her knees.

“Don’t!” Lizzie shouted, running toward her daughter as Kate stood over her, ready to strike her again. She shoved the other woman out of the way, then crouched down and thumped a hypodermic needle into Ellis’s bare thigh. Ellis yelped with sudden pain. With the needle still stuck in her skin, she spun around and lashed out at her mother with her bound hands, managing to scratch her nails down her cheek, leaving three parallel bloodred lines.

Then she stopped.

Eyes glazed, she tried to stand up again. She took two steps forward, then fell and hit the grimy carpet, face first. She tried to pick herself up again but was out cold before she’d lifted her head.

The room was instantly silent. Even Kate’s parents became quiet-her mother in shock and her father concussed. Gurmit Singh, who’d been cowering against the door with his hands over his head, stood up and reached for the handle. Mark also stood, the throbbing pain in his balls beginning to subside, and shouted at him.

“You open that door and go out there and you won’t get back in again. Your choice.”

Singh looked at him. Mark didn’t know for sure whether or not he understood, but was relieved when he hesitated with his hand on the latch, then stopped and trudged slowly back to the armchair he’d claimed as his own. He stepped over Ellis’s inert body and pointed down at her.

“Evil,” he hissed. He jabbed his finger at the door. “Nasty bitch! Get gone! Not here!”

With Kate busy dealing with her suddenly catatonic parents, Mark held Ellis still as Lizzie lashed her legs together with a length of nylon clothesline, then gagged her again. She rubbed antiseptic cream from an almost empty tube on the countless sores and abrasions that covered Ellis’s skin, caused by weeks of struggling against her bonds.

“What the hell happened?”

Lizzie shook her head, wiping away tears and trying to stay in control.

“I’m running out of pills. I’ve been giving her half doses. I was just trying to clean her up… I thought she was out cold, but she must have just been asleep or she was trying to trick me or…”

She stopped speaking and began to sob, stroking her daughter’s lank, greasy hair. She shuffled back as Mark dragged Ellis into the bathroom and chained her to the base of the sink pedestal.

“How many of those shots have you got left?”

“That was the last one.”

“And the pills?”

He backed out of the bathroom and shut the door. Lizzie didn’t answer until it was fully closed and her daughter had disappeared from view.

“A week at the most.”

“Jesus…”

“What am I going to do, Mark?”

“That thing has to go,” Kate interrupted, shouting from across the room and pointing accusingly at the bathroom door. “Get it out of here, because if you two don’t, I will.”

He walked over to her and reached out to put his arms around her, but she pulled away. She leaned against the wall and slid down it, cradling her distended belly.

“That thing,” Lizzie sobbed, “is my daughter.”

“She was your daughter,” Kate quickly replied. “Christ knows what she is now. She’s more animal than human.”

“I know that, but what am I supposed to do?” Lizzie asked, sitting on the floor opposite and holding her head in her hands. “You tell me what I’m supposed to do.”

“Just get rid of her. She’s one of them, Lizzie. She won’t stop fighting until she’s killed us all-”

“I know, but-”

“She killed your boys. How can you ever stand to be anywhere near her when she took your sons from you?”

“I can’t,” she immediately answered, pulling her knees up to her chest and bowing her head, ashamed by her own admission. “I don’t want her here either, but I don’t know what else I can do. I’m her mother and-”

“You could turn her over to the military.”

“You know I can’t. We’ve been through this. As soon as they’ve got her they’ll put a bullet in her head.”

“So?”

“I can’t let that happen,” she snapped with sudden anger evident in her increasingly desperate voice. “You’re right, Katie, I should never have brought her here, but what else could I have done? If I just let her go now, she’ll start killing, and they’ll hunt her down. Even if I could get her out of the city she wouldn’t survive. She won’t be able to find food or keep warm or look after herself or-”

“Tough. We should just do it.”

“How would we get her through the crowds?” Mark asked, trying hard to remain practical and focused and not let fraught emotions cloud the situation.

“Pump her full of drugs, then. Give her everything you’ve got left. Kill her, for Christ’s sake.”

“Katie-” Mark began to protest.

“I can’t hurt her,” Lizzie sobbed. “She’s my daughter, my own flesh and blood. Regardless of what she’s done or what she might do, I still have to protect her.”

30

ARE YOU MCCOYNE?”

I sit up quick. Eyes blurred. Where am I? No chains. Dull gray light. I look around and try to make sense of my surroundings. It’s one of the upstairs rooms in the social club. I found these cushions on a sofa downstairs and-

“Are you McCoyne?” the voice asks again from somewhere behind me. Neck’s stiff. I look back over my shoulder and see a figure standing in the open doorway.

“Yeah, what’s the problem?”

“No problem. Come with me.”

He turns and disappears, and I’ve got no choice but to follow. The building is cold, and I jog across the landing to catch up with him. I recognize him now. His name’s Craven. Julia introduced me to him yesterday. I think he’s her right-hand man.

We enter the largest upstairs room. Julia and another man are sleeping here. Craven gestures for me to sit down next to him at a table in the corner, where he fires up a laptop. I saw him using it when I first arrived.

“Have we got power here?” I ask, noticing that there’s a power cable connected to the back of the computer. Dumb question.

“Sort of,” he answers, sounding as tired as I feel. “There’s electricity a few streets away. We’ve just run a cord here to keep the laptop going.”

“What, an extension cord?”

He looks at me, dumbfounded. “Yes, a fucking extension cord.”

He shakes his head and turns his attention to the laptop. I watch as he logs on to some kind of central database. Is this the same system that Mallon talked about? My knowledge of this kind of thing is limited, and I don’t want to piss him off any more than I already have by asking him how the hell he can connect to anything from here, or even what’s left to connect to. There are all kinds of things hanging out of the back of the machine-wires running into small black boxes and the like-I guess the secret’s there, somewhere. My mind wanders as I watch him working. I stop thinking about what it is he’s doing, and instead I just look at the bright display and listen to the sound of the keyboard clicking as he types. I used to hear that noise all day, every day at work. It takes me back…

“Sorry about the early wake-up call,” he mumbles, still concentrating on the screen. “Access to the system’s intermittent, so we have to make the most of it when we can. They’re usually running automatic maintenance at this time of day, so the security’s easier to bypass…”

His words fade away as the screen changes and he concentrates on entering more details.

“There… got it.”

“Got what?”

He slides the laptop over to me. “We’re in. Enter your details.”

“What details?”

“Your name, date of birth, last known postal code.”

I start jabbing at the keyboard with two fingers. It’s months since I typed anything.

“Wait,” he says. “Danny short for Daniel?”

“Yes.”

“Put your full name in.”

I do as he says.

“What’s all this about? What are we doing?” I ask.

“Killing you,” he replies without a hint of sarcasm.

“Killing me?”

“Thing about this war,” he says as he takes the laptop back again, “is that it’s made everybody’s priorities change. Everyone’s worried about their physical safety, and some of the things that used to matter now get forgotten about or overlooked. This is a prime example. This is just about the only national system that’s still running outside of defense, and anyone with half a brain can hack into it and make alterations.”

“But what exactly is it you’re doing?”

“Is that you?” he asks, angling the screen back toward me. I scan the details.

“Yes, that’s me.”

“Right,” he continues, working his way through various menus and submenus. “Ah, good, you’re dead already!”

“What?!”

“They’ve got you down as being dead. Tell me, did you ever have one of those neck tests or a mouth swab?”

“Yes, why?”

“Because that’s where most of this information comes from. They used it as kind of a census and tried to test pretty much everyone when everything first kicked off. It’s a “who’s what,” rather than a “who’s who,” if you get my meaning.”

“Sort of. Anyway, I’m not dead.”

“According to this you are.”

He clicks a button and scans another screen.

“Hunter’s Cross. Ring any bells?”

“Doesn’t mean anything to me.”

“It’s a gas chamber. They’ve got you down as being killed there.”

“I ended up inside one of those places, but I got out when it was attacked.”

“There you go, that explains it. They probably marked you off as being dead when they sent you down. Close shave, eh?”

“Too close.”

“That’s it, then,” he says, starting to close up the laptop. “You can go back to sleep now.”

“Wait a second,” I say quickly, putting my hand on the lid of the machine and stopping him from closing it. “Can I…?”

He seems to immediately know what I want. He’s probably done this for plenty of other people before me.

“Be quick,” he whispers. “If Julia catches me letting you do this she’ll have my balls.”

My hands are suddenly shaking with nerves. I look down at my details on the screen, but there’s nothing on there that I didn’t already know (apart from the fact that, apparently, I’m dead).

“How do I…?”

“Looking for family?”

“Yes, my daughter.”

“Start there,” he says, pointing at the bottom of the screen. I click on a button marked other people listed at this address. There’s a pause of several seconds; then a blank screen is returned. My heart sinks.

“How old was she?”

“Five.”

“Either she hasn’t been listed or she’s listed elsewhere. Try searching on her name.”

I enter Ellis’s details and press search. Still nothing.

“Was she with anyone?”

“Her mother and brothers.”

“Search for them, then.”

I try Elizabeth McCoyne-no match. In desperation I try my son Edward. He’s listed at an address I don’t recognize, as is his brother. They’re both marked as being dead, and, just for a second, I feel a sharp pang of pain. It quickly fades when Craven starts making noises.

“Come on,” he whispers, “that’s enough. Julia will have a fucking fit.”

“Wait a second,” I say quickly, desperate not to let go of the computer yet.

“Now!”

“Just one more…”

I turn my back to him and cover the keyboard as I type. I search for Elizabeth Parker, remembering that Lizzie only took on my name informally for the sake of the kids. She always used her given name on official forms. I stare at a blank screen and frantically flashing cursor. Craven looks over his shoulder. The faster I need a result, the slower this system seems to get.

“Come on,” he says, sounding agitated.

It finally returns a screen full of results-eight Elizabeth Parkers are listed. I scroll down to the right date of birth and click on Lizzie’s entry. She’s listed at a hotel, and I quickly memorize the address. The Prince Hotel on Arley Road -I think I know it. Pressing my luck, I click the other people listed at this address button once more and just manage to scan down the first part of a huge list of names before Craven wrestles the laptop away from me and slams the lid down. I think I saw one of my cousins’ names, Mark Tillotsen, but no sign of Ellis.

I get up and turn around. Julia is standing behind me.

“Whoever it was,” she warns, “forget them.”

31

I’M SCAVENGING DOWNSTAIRS FOR food, hunting through deserted kitchens and bars that have already been ransacked countless times before, hoping to find an overlooked stash of supplies to supplement the crappy rations I’ve had since I got here. At the back of a counter, tucked away behind a lifeless cash register, I find three small packets of peanuts. I swallow the contents of the first in a single mouthful, then do the same with the second. I shove the third into my trouser pocket for later. There’s precious little time to think about food these days, but when I do get to eat I realize just how much I’ve missed it. Maybe one day I’ll get to eat a proper meal again, if I survive the next couple of days, that is.

There’s a half-open door behind the bar I hadn’t noticed before. I lean inside.

“Who the hell’s that?”

I back out of the low-lit storeroom quickly, startled by the voice from the darkness. The door lets some light in, and I can see someone in the corner, sitting wedged between two piles of empty boxes.

“Sorry, I…”

The man looks up and shakes his head. I recognize him from last night. His name’s Parsons.

“Doesn’t matter, my friend.”

I’ve only been awake for a couple of hours, but already the drawn-out tedium of waiting to fight is getting to me. The idea of a conversation-any distraction-is appealing.

“What are you doing in here?”

“Keeping out of the way.”

“Why? You pissed Julia off or something?”

“Show me someone who hasn’t.”

I know what he means. Being around Julia reminds me of working for Tina Murray, my sour old bitch of a supervisor back at the PFP. Wonder what happened to her…?

Parsons gestures for me to come closer. I do as he says, then slide down the wall and sit next to him. It’s stiflingly hot in the social club this morning now that the sun’s up, but the dark storeroom is refreshingly cool.

“So are you ready for this?” I ask. “Ready to go out there and start fighting?”

“’Course I am,” he answers, almost too quickly. “Can’t wait to start killing again. Can’t wait to see them panic when we get given the word.”

There’s an awkward silence.

“You don’t sound convinced.”

The silence continues as he thinks about what I just said.

“I’m not. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I know what’s got to be done and I know this is probably the only way to make it happen. It’s just that…”

“You don’t want to die?”

“Exactly.”

“Me neither,” I admit. “Who does?”

“No one in their right mind. They’re all talking about this battle like it’s a holy war or something, and it’s doing my head in. I don’t want to be stuck in the middle of the city when they level the place like they did London.”

“But it’s got to be done. You can’t deny that.”

“I know… I’m just nervous, you know?” he admits, keeping his voice low. “I can’t stand all this hanging around. You know what it’s like when you know you’ve got to fight, you just want to get on and do it.”

He’s right. It’s a relief to find someone else who’s willing to speak candidly about how they’re feeling. Most everyone else is too busy spouting propaganda and bullshit bravado to dare admit that they’re apprehensive about what’s coming. They talk like I imagine Brutes think-focused on the kill at all costs.

“You been here long?” I ask.

“Got here about half a day before you.”

“And were you at that convent place with Sahota?”

He nods his head.

“We’ve all been through that. Quite the eye-opener, eh?”

Parsons stares into space, thinking hard. I sense there’s more he wants to say, but he’s not sure whether he can speak. Perhaps hethinks I’m testing his dedication to the cause? I study his tired face. He looks about ten years older than me, and I wonder what it is we have in common that made us both suitable fodder for Sahota’s organization.

“So did you believe any of it?”

“What?”

“All that stuff the Unchanged were spouting at Sahota’s place? Breaking the cycle and all that crap?”

I don’t answer immediately. Can I trust this man? Now I’m wondering if he’s the one testing my allegiance.

“Some of it,” I answer, being deliberately vague. “What about you?”

“I agree with most of it up to a point. What Sahota said scared me more, though. I get the feeling they’re just using us as-” He stops suddenly.

“Problem?”

“Listen…”

I quickly get up and go back out into the bar. Someone’s banging on the outside of the fire exit I entered through yesterday. Apart from me and Parsons there’s no one else down here, and I realize it’s up to me to confront whoever’s out there. I move quickly across the room, grabbing a broken pool cue to use as a weapon, then stand by the door and wait. The hammering continues. The door’s solid-no way of knowing who it is without opening it up.

“Do it,” Parsons hisses from across the room. Cowardly fucker, why don’t you come over here and open it? Rather than argue, I take a deep breath, tighten my grip on my pool cue bludgeon, then open the door. There’s a teenaged girl standing in front of me, looking as tense and unsure as I did when I first arrived here. She only looks about fifteen. She’s one of us.

“I’m looking for Julia Chapman,” she says, her voice surprisingly confident and strong.

“Who is?” I ask, remembering back to my first encounter here.

“My name’s Sophie Wilson,” she answers, handling the situation far better than I did, “and I’ve got a message for her from Sahota.”

I let her in, quickly glancing around the back of the building to make sure she hasn’t been followed before shutting and barring the fire exit.

I lead her through the eerily quiet building, Parsons following us at a cautious distance. I take her upstairs to where I last left Julia talking to Craven, but she’s not there. He points up at the ceiling. I double back and head up to the roof, covering my eyes at the sudden brightness. The sun is huge in the clear sky high above us. Julia’s sitting on one of the deckchairs under the tarpaulin, looking into the city through a pair of binoculars. She lowers them when she hears us approach.

“This is-” I start to say.

“You Julia?” Sophie asks. Julia nods. “Got a message for you from Sahota. He said to tell you that I’m the last one.”

“What else?”

“He said: Town hall, south side. Six a.m. Five others.”

Julia looks at her for a second, absorbing what she’s been told. Then she nods her head.

“Thanks. Get some rest while you can. There might still be some food left downstairs. Ask one of the others and they’ll show you.”

Sophie heads back down without question, leaving me with Julia. Parsons hovers behind us nervously.

“What did her message mean?” I ask, feeling like I’m the only one who’s not in the know.

“It means there’s as many of us here as there’s ever gonna be. It means it’s time.”

I look straight ahead, determined not to let her see how nervous I’m suddenly feeling.

“South side?”

“South side of the town hall is where he wants us to base ourselves,” she answers, looking through the binoculars again. “It’s where I thought he’d want us to be, close enough to the military to cause them problems, far enough out not to be suspicious.”

“And five others? What was that all about?”

“Five other groups like ours. That’s not so good. We were hoping for double that. Should still be enough, though.”

“And where will they be?”

“Don’t know, and I don’t care. All I know and all you need to know is that we’ll go where we’re told to and cause fucking chaos when the time’s right. Between six groups of us, their military won’t know which way to turn. The panic will spread fast, and before you know it the whole city will be fighting. And if we do it right, before long there won’t be a city left.”

“There won’t be anything left,” Parsons mumbles under his breath.

I sit down on the edge of the roof and stare into the distance. The Unchanged camp looks like a massive, dirty black machine from here. Clouds of gray smoke billow up from between buildings like belching exhaust fumes. Helicopters buzz through the air like flies around a corpse. There’s no point denying it, being this close to the enemy makes me want to march in there and start killing. Or it would if I didn’t feel the odds were stacked against us. It’s probably just me. Perhaps I’m at fault? Maybe I should have more faith? But like I keep telling myself, I don’t want to die.

“Just imagine it,” Julia says wistfully, looking deep into the distance. “Imagine when we start to fight and they start to run, when they panic and try to get away from us, then run straight into the next battle. Christ, it’ll be beautiful. It won’t take much, you know; just the minimum of coordination from us will be enough to start it off, and they’ll do the rest themselves. It’ll be a chain reaction. We’ll be able to sit back and watch them killing each other.”

I know I should keep my mouth shut, but I can’t.

“Except we won’t, will we?”

“Won’t what?”

“Once we’re in there, there’s no way back out.”

“Doesn’t matter. All that’s important is wiping out the enemy.”

“But at what cost?”

“We can’t coexist, end of story. The cost is irrelevant.”

I’m making things worse for myself, but I can’t help it.

“What good is winning if you’re dead? What did they used to call that, a Pyrrhic victory?”

“A what?” Parsons asks.

“A Pyrrhic victory,” Julia sighs. “It’s when you win the battle, but the end result leaves you fucked, too.”

“Great,” he grunts.

“You’re wrong,” she says to me, putting down the binoculars and standing up, “and you need to stop talking like that.”

“How am I wrong? Once we’re in the city, there’s very little chance of any of us getting out alive, is there?”

“It’s a sacrifice we have to make.”

“And where will your pal Sahota be when all of this is going on? Watching from his office? When we’re gone, who’s left? Just kids and Brutes?”

She shakes her head. “You come up with an alternative and I’ll listen. Do you want the Unchanged to survive?”

“Of course not, but-”

“But what?”

“But there’s got to be a better way.”

“If there was, don’t you think someone like Sahota would have come up with it by now? If there was any alternative, don’t you think we’d have tried it? None of us wants to die.”

“My point exactly.”

“But if your death results in the death of hundreds of the enemy, thousands even, then it has to be worth it.”

I don’t bother to respond. She’s bought into this completely, like a brainwashed old-school terrorist about to embark on a jihad. Even if my death were to result in tens of thousands of Unchanged being killed, I still don’t want it to happen. And what about Ellis? I’d rather fight steadily and have this war drag on for years than sacrifice myself today. I can’t stand the thought of not seeing her again.

Julia’s not going to let this go.

“You need to focus on what’s coming,” she says, a sneering, threatening tone in her voice. “Craven said you were looking up information about your family earlier. Forget them, whoever and whatever they were. Your only allegiance now is to us. Nothing else matters apart from what we do when we get back into the city.”

She stares into my face, then walks away, stopping before she disappears down the stepladder.

“If you screw up when we’re in there,” she warns, “then so help me, I’ll kill you myself. This is too important for an idiot like you to fuck up.”

I watch her go, shaking my head in disbelief. Parsons quietly takes her place in the now empty deckchair. I forgot he was here.

“Thanks for the support.”

“I’m with you, pal,” he says, shielding his eyes from the sun, “but I’ve got enough sense to keep my mouth shut.”

32

HEAVY CLOUD FILLED THE sky during the late afternoon and early evening. As darkness fell we were called into the main upstairs function room and weapons were handed out. I was given a gun, a few rounds of ammo, and several grenades, but I don’t think I’ll use them. More to the point, I don’t know how to use them, even though Julia and one of the others tried to show us. I’ll stick to my blades.

Since this war began I’ve fought alongside hundreds of men and women, maybe even thousands. Who they were and what they were capable of didn’t seem to matter until now. But, standing in the bizarre surroundings of the run-down social club, I looked at the ten other fighters heading into town with me and tried to imagine how each of them would fight and kill. The two women-Julia and Sophie-seemed totally unfazed, ready to face anything. Most of the others were similarly focused. Only Parsons and a guy called Harvey seemed as nervous and agitated as I felt. Harvey is a huge, lumbering bulk of a man. He wears glasses with ridiculously thick lenses, and he suffers from acute asthma. He sounds like Darth Vader, and he has appalling halitosis. You can smell him and hear him long before you see him coming. Poor bastard. He comes across as being a bit backward, and I wonder how much of what’s happening he truly understands. Still, he must have something between his ears if they reckon he’ll be able to keep control of himself in the city surrounded by Unchanged. I’m not convinced.

We left the social club before 3:00 a.m., splitting into four pairs and one group of three, staggering our departures and each of us taking a different, prearranged route to the rendezvous point in town. I’m with Craven, the computer guy, and he reckons we’ve been walking for almost an hour. We follow the towpath alongside a canal that cuts through what used to be a busy residential area. This place used to be a vibrant, noisy suburb of the city. The nearby university caused the local population to swell during the school year, and the narrow streets were full of cheap shops, restaurants, cafés, bars, and pubs. Everywhere is silent now. The only resident I can see is floating facedown in the murky canal.

The towpath has taken us almost all the way into the very center of the city. We reach a steep flight of steps that lead back up to the street. As we climb them, our closeness to the heart of town becomes apparent. We emerge among lifeless crowds of terrified Unchanged who don’t even look at us when we pass them. I expected this to be infinitely harder but I’m somehow able now to swallow down my emotions, hold the Hate and not start killing because I know they’ll be dead before long anyway. Seeing Sahota’s plan realized will result in many more deaths than I could ever cause by myself. If everything happens as predicted, the city will have fallen by this time tomorrow. Maybe I can bear to be with them because, for the first time in as long as I can remember, the Unchanged are not my only focus. I have another agenda. Since we left the social club all I’ve been able to think about is getting deeper into town, giving Craven the slip, and heading for the Prince Hotel. I’ll search for Lizzie, and then, when I’ve made her tell me where she last saw Ellis, I’ll use the chaos as cover and try to get away.

“Down here,” Craven says, changing direction and leading me along a tight passageway filled with people. I look into their vacant faces, and I feel nothing but contempt for them. They remind me of what I used to be before the Hate-beaten, wretched, resigned. They cower in the shadows, waiting for a salvation that is never going to come. The Hate has stripped away their identities and their purpose. They are empty, just waiting for death to come along and end their misery. Standing here, ankle deep in this scum, there’s apart of me that wants to stay and see Sahota’s plan fully realized. I want to watch these people burn.

The road we’re now following runs along the edge of a military enclosure. Everything looks so different tonight, but I’m sure this used to be a council depot. Tall railings surround the place, and there’s a massive concentration of soldiers at the gates. The enclosure is comparatively well lit, thumping gas-driven generators powering floodlights. The number of refugees under our feet here is greater, too, attracted like moths to the light and noise. Craven and I weave through the milling masses with our heads held high, without a fucking care, and no one even gives us a second glance.

“I can see why Sahota picked this spot,” I say quietly as we begin a slow descent down the packed, sloping main street that leads to the town hall. Even now it’s still an impressive focal point of a building, a huge, mock-Grecian hall complete with ornate carvings and rows of massive white stone columns. The civic square around it is seething with people, most of them camped out on the cold, hard ground, wrapped up in coats and blankets, their misery illuminated by more well-spaced lights. There are signs that there used to be something like a soup kitchen operating from here-abandoned tables, empty gas cylinders and tins of food, plastic plates and cutlery blowing in the suddenly vicious wind.

“It’s perfect,” Craven agrees. “There are thousands of them here, and they’re all at breaking point. They probably came here looking for food and shelter and got neither, so they just dropped where they were standing and gave up. They’ll riot in a heartbeat once we start on them.”

I look around as we pick our way through the sprawled masses. He’s right. There’s an unspoken tension in the air here, much more fractious and intense than any I’ve felt before. There’s an uncomfortable standoff between civilians and the military, too. I don’t know which side is more wary of the other. Maybe that’s the real reason why the soldiers are here in such numbers?

We move past a large stone statue, and seeing its distinctive dark outline strikes a sudden chord. For a second I remember this place as it used to be. On the rare occasions I’d get a proper lunch break from work, I’d sometimes walk here to get away from the office and everyone in it. Once or twice I met Lizzie here before the kids were born.

“There’s Sophie,” Craven says, nudging me in the ribs with his elbow and nodding over to where she’s standing on the opposite side of the square. “Go find yourself a spot.”

We separate as planned. Each of us will disappear into the crowd until the time to attack comes. It’ll look less suspicious if we’re all spread out, not that it matters; when the fighting starts no one will care who threw the first punch or fired the first shot. I find a narrow gap midway along a low wall, between two sleeping refugees, where I stop and wait. There’s a still-functioning clock on the side of the town hall, just visible from where I’m standing. It’s approaching four. Just over two hours to go. The Prince Hotel is no farther than a mile from here. I’ll wait for a little while before I make my move. If I go off too fast there’s a chance I’ll be seen and followed.

Trying not to make it too obvious, I look around for the others. Craven and Sophie I’ve already seen. I see Parsons way over to my right and another man whose name I don’t know sitting perched on the plinth of the statue in the center of the square. Harvey is leaning up against the same wall as me, a little farther along. His size makes him easy to pick out in the crowd.

There’s Julia, too, sitting right in front of me, just a handful of people between us. I catch her eye and, stupidly, almost acknowledge her. She has a dirty blanket draped over her head, all but the top half of her face hidden. Bitch is staring straight at me, watching my every move.

33

IT’S BEEN PISSING DOWN rain for the last twenty minutes. There’s no shelter here, and I, like everyone else, am soaked to the skin and freezing cold. I’ve been crouching down beside the wall trying to keep myself covered, but the rainwater’s running down across the gentle slope of the packed square now, forming deep puddles around my feet. The conditions don’t bother me-I’m getting ready for what amounts to a suicide attack, surrounded by Unchanged, and a little water is the least of my problems-but when other people start to move around me I know I need to go with them to keep up the illusion. I follow two of them, stepping over the person immediately to my left, who hasn’t moved in as long as I’ve been here. Someone grabs my arm, and I know who it is before I turn around. I can hear him breathing.

“Is this it?” Harvey asks, his voice low but still too loud. “Is it time?”

I shake my head. “Not yet, too soon. I’m just getting out of the rainwater.”

I try to move, but he keeps hold of me.

“Where you going?”

“Somewhere drier.”

“I’ll come.”

“No, it’s better if we split up. If people see us together they’ll get suspicious.”

“Doesn’t matter. Not long now.”

“I know, but-”

I shut up when the deafening rumble of a sudden, booming explosion fills the air. There’s a moment of silent shock in the square, everyone taken by surprise. It lasts no longer than a second; then all hell breaks loose around me. The mass of people who’d been sheltering on the ground begin to get up and scramble for cover. Is this it? Has the signal to fight been given early? I look around, but, apart from Harvey, there’s no one I recognize anywhere close in the mass of refugees suddenly crisscrossing all around me. My arm is grabbed again.

“It’s not time,” Julia yells in my ear, shouting to make herself heard over the noise filling the square. “Don’t fight. This isn’t it. Get up toward the statue.”

I do as she says, sensing her following my every step. I look up and see that a surprising number of the people in the crowd ahead have now stopped and are standing still, looking back in the direction from which I’ve just come. Other panicking refugees continue to weave around them. One of our men is already standing on the statue. He sees us coming and beckons us closer. He points out into the distance.

“Some dumb fucker’s got their timings wrong.”

Still being shunted from every angle, I pull myself up next to him and look back. Behind the town hall a high-rise office building is on fire. There’s a necklace of fierce flame burning about two-thirds up the side of the building, and it’s taking hold with incredible speed. I can see people in the windows above the flames, illuminated by what’s happening below them. Some have started to jump, choosing instant death when they hit the ground over waiting for the fire and smoke to get them.

“This isn’t right,” I say, thinking out loud, trying to shield my face from the torrential, driving rain.

“What isn’t?” the man next to me asks as he reaches into the pockets of his jacket for weapons.

“Why there? If you want to cause panic at ground level, why start fighting halfway up a high-rise?”

“It wasn’t us,” Craven shouts, wading through the masses to get to us.

“How do you know?”

“Helicopter. You can see it sticking out of the side of the building. Looks like it was just an accident. Guess it was only a matter of time. You can’t look up in this place without seeing something in the air. Everything’s so dark that buildings like that must be pretty hard to make out, and in this weather it’s even worse. Idiots must have flown straight into it.”

Julia plucks Harvey from the crowd and pulls the five of us closer together, no longer concerned with trying to remain invisible. The other people around us couldn’t give a damn who we are or what we’re doing.

“We have to keep waiting,” she says. “This is only going to help us.”

“We should do it now,” Craven argues, “capitalize on it. Sahota wanted more groups-”

“We wait,” Julia orders.

I stare at the crash for a few seconds longer, watching the flames crawling and licking up the sides of the high-rise, swallowing the tail of the helicopter. The fire moves with incredible speed, seeming to eat up the higher floors of the building in massive gulps. The destruction is beautiful, almost hypnotic. But then something happening down here at ground level tears my attention away from the building. People. They’re starting to flood into the already packed square. As if a dam has burst its banks, a deluge of desperate refugees is suddenly washing toward us, forced out from their flimsy shelters and squalid refuges around the base of the burning building. Some are injured. Others are coughing, their lungs filled with acrid smoke and dust. Most, though, are just panicking-going with the flow of everyone else around them. Their fear and confusion is invigorating. To experience their terror this close makes me feel superior and strong. They’re running blind from the immediately perceived danger without giving a second’s thought to what they might be running toward.

Suddenly the air is filled with more thunderous noise. Another explosion. This time it’s in the opposite direction, and I’m sure this has to be one of ours. A swollen balloon of flame billows up in the darkness about half a mile from here. It disappears quickly, but its aftereffects remain. Surely another surge of refugees will start moving this way and will hit the others head-on?

“That’s enough,” Craven says. “Come on, Julia, let’s just do it. We won’t gain anything from waiting.”

They can do what the fuck they like. I’m going. This is my last chance to find Lizzie before all hell breaks loose, and I’m going to take it. I climb down off the statue, and then, leaving Craven and Julia arguing, I start to move back through the crowd. I glance up at the clock on the side of the town hall as I’m swallowed up by the masses. Quarter to five. If Julia has her way I’ve still got an hour. Or have I? Has the fuse already been lit?

The constant movement and heavy rain are disorienting, and I’m struggling to get my bearings. I push my way deeper into the hordes of Unchanged and manage to almost reach the farthest edge of the civic square before I realize I’m moving in the wrong direction, the burned-out ruin of a nightclub looming up in front of me. People are tearing along an alleyway at the side of the ruined building in both directions, none of them making any progress. I turn around and walk straight into Parsons. He stands in front of me and blocks my way, looking as desperate and lost as one of the Unchanged. He has a grenade in his hand.

“Is this it, McCoyne?”

“No,” I tell him, “not yet. Julia says we should-”

“I think it’s time.”

“Not yet,” I say again, having to shout now to make myself heard. “She’s up there by the statue. Go and speak to her. See what she says before you-”

“It must be time,” he shouts over the rain. “I can’t stand all this waiting-”

“Parsons, don’t! It was just a helicopter crash. And the other explosion-”

He doesn’t say anything else. Instead he just pulls the pin from his grenade. A sudden surge from the crowd shunts him sideways. I try to move back as he manages to get his balance and stand straight again.

“Throw the fucking thing!”

Disoriented and racked with nerves, Parsons just looks at me. I shove him hard in the gut, sending him tripping down the slope, colliding with refugees and knocking them over like bowling pins. He topples back and is gone, immediately snatched from view by the hordes. I put my shoulder down and run as fast as I can in the opposite direction, forcing my way through the masses. I trip over a body on the ground and stumble forward, barely managing to stay upright. Instinctively, I reach out and grab hold of another startled refugee, using him to haul myself back up and keep moving forward. He tries to grapple me down, but I just push him out of the way, knowing that in seconds I’ll be the least of his worries. This one has more spirit and fight than most. He manages to cling to the corner of my coat, and I yank it from his grip, then duck to one side when he takes a swing at me. I try to focus on getting away and not panic. I shove him down and glance back over my shoulder, praying that I won’t be able to-

For a fraction of a second the world is filled with brilliant white light and a noise so loud I think my head’s going to burst. I’m thrown down by the force of the explosion behind me, and for a moment all I can do lie still, sandwiched between fallen Unchanged. I pick myself up, using the bodies around me for support. I look back again, and I can see a space in the crowd and a dark, shallow pit where, just seconds ago, countless people were crammed together. Now there’s nothing, just a layer of bloody, smoldering debris. I turn and run as the shock quickly fades and panic again begins to fill the air.

People are running in every direction away from the square now, and I allow myself to be carried along with them, using their bulk as camouflage. None of them know who or what I am, and none of them care. Away from Julia and the others I’m suddenly as irrelevant and unimportant as everyone else, and the anonymity is welcome and reassuring. Running shoulder to shoulder with the enemy, I realize the desperate need to kill these people I’ve always felt has all but disappeared. Maybe it’s because these people are all dead anyway? There’s less than an hour to go now until Sahota’s moment of glory, but I don’t think the city will last that long. A phalanx of helicopters thunders overhead. One of them breaks off and begins firing on some unseen target close to the burning high-rise, causing the crowd around me to start moving with even more panic and speed.

Above the heads of the stampeding masses I see something I think I recognize-the distinctive angular outline of a tall, recently built apartment building. As I run toward it there’s another sudden detonation and the front of the building explodes outward in a swollen bulge of fire and heat. I turn away from the immediate blast and duck down as thousands of tiny shards of glass begin raining down around me. Most of the crowd instinctively tries to turn back and run the other way. Dumb fuckers. I keep moving forward, knowing that the ground around the center of the blast will be relatively clear now with just the dead and dying to get through. I run past the burning stump of the building, zigzagging through the carnage, dodging chunks of concrete and twisted lumps of metal and flesh. I look up and see people trapped on the upper floors. A woman falls from a third-floor window and lands on the pavement just ahead of me, shoved out by the terrified crowds behind her, hitting the ground with a wet thud like rotten fruit. It’s wonderful to see. Part of me wishes I could find somewhere safe around here to sit and watch the whole city burn.

I’m back to shoving my way through the enemy masses again in seconds. I thump heads with another man, and he pushes me away angrily, his eyes full of hate. Instinctively I reach for my knife but force myself to let it go, fighting against everything I believe in. The need to kill might have subsided, but the desire’s still strong. I’m like a junkie who’s been clean for years but who’s now surrounded by an endless supply of his drug of choice. Once I start killing, will I be able to stop? If I lose control now, all hope of finding Lizzie will be gone forever, and although I don’t want to have to face her again, without Lizzie there’s no chance I’ll ever know what happened to Ellis. This is my last chance.

There’s another momentary gap in the crowd at the middle of a once-busy crossroads. This place used to be one of the busiest intersections in town with backed-up lines of traffic all day, every day. I climb up onto the roof of an abandoned MPV-the kind of car I always wanted-and look around me. The Prince Hotel is, I think, still about half a mile farther in the direction I’ve just been running. Apparently endless swarms of people continue to try to escape the carnage behind me, fighting with each other to make it through the madness. As more explosions suddenly light up the area around the town hall and the civic square behind me, the beauty and simplicity of Sahota’s plan comes sharply into focus. Did Julia cause those last blasts, or Craven or one of the others? Has she finally given the order to attack? If it’s like this now, I think to myself, how bad will it be by six o’clock?

A helicopter crawls across the sky overhead, illuminating me momentarily with its sweeping searchlight, filling the air with thumping noise. I jump back down to the road and keep running.

34

RECOGNITION AND FAMILIARITY BRING even more fear and nerves. Not far now. The hotel’s almost in view, and every footstep I take brings me closer to Lizzie and to knowing what happened to my daughter. What if I’m too late? What if Ellis is lost or dead? Suddenly turning tail and heading back to the town hall to fight alongside the others seems an easier option than what I’m about to do.

I take a shortcut through an eerily empty supermarket, in through the loading bay and out toward the smashed front windows. Before going outside again I stop and stand in the darkness to take stock of the chaos unfolding all around me. The behavior of the Unchanged population is changing. In the short time since the explosions around the town hall, most of them have abandoned their need to remain isolated and distant from everyone else. Although there are some who still cling to the protection of the shadows, desperate not to be seen, most have now joined the ever-growing exodus away from the center of the city. They move virtually as a single, snaking mass now, all of them following the person in front, none of them consciously choosing the direction in which they run. Their sudden reliance on the safety of numbers again exposes the pathetic weakness and vulnerability of the Unchanged.

I run along a narrow, shadow-filled street, then pause when I reach Arley Road and look in both directions, struggling to see anything through the hordes of people now trying to escape from the center of town down this major route. Then I spot it. The Prince Hotel stands fifty yards or so farther up the road. The once-imposing building is pretty much exactly as I remember, its frontage just becoming visible in the dull first light of dawn. The rain has finally stopped, leaving the damp air smelling fresh and clean, the dirt and decay temporarily washed away.

What the hell am I doing? I suddenly feel guilty and weak. I should be back by the town hall fighting with the others, so what am I doing out here on my own? Logic says that after three months of violence and unpredictability, Lizzie could be anywhere. Christ, she’s probably dead. Craven told me the Unchanged computer system was inaccurate and easily manipulated, so why have I put so much faith in what I saw on the computer screen? The reason’s simple-it’s because I’ve got nothing else. There’s no alternative. This is my last chance, and I can either take it or give up on Ellis forever. I take my axe from my belt and a knife from inside the folds of my coat and hold them ready. I feel detached from everything now. There’s the Unchanged on one side, my people on the other, and then, standing alone and wedged right between them, is me.

I sprint away from the side of the road and charge deep into the river of people still flooding out of town. The first few stragglers I collide with are pushed away with hardly any effort, and it’s not until I’m close to the center of the road that I have to start killing to keep moving. It’s the only option left now if I want to get through, but I know I’m doing it because it’s the only way to keep moving, not because I want them dead. I’m carried along with the flow of barely human flesh, so deep and so strong and fast-moving that I struggle to lift my arms to fight. I manage to raise the axe and bring it thumping down between the shoulders of a man directly in front of me. I spin him around, the blade still buried in his back, then kick him down. A woman, being forced forward by the mass of people behind her, trips over the body on the ground, and I hack at her, too, wedging the axe deep in her neck. Two down now, and the piled-up corpses act like a rock in the middle of a stream, channeling the flow of refugees around me on either side. I’m braced for their reaction, but it doesn’t come. These people have seen and experienced so much that what I’m doing is nothing new to them. All they’re interested in is getting away, screw everyone else. Another man trips over the bodies on the road and collides with me. I swing the axe around and hit his pelvis, sending him spiraling away and clearing even more room. I’m suddenly standing in an unexpected bubble of space. One man, tall and powerfully built, much stronger than me, breaks ranks and hurls himself at me. All I do is hold out my knife, and the stupid bastard impales himself on the blade. Another one rushes me, and now they’re finally beginning to realize what I am. I duck out of the way of his amateurish, aimless attack, and he collides with a teenaged girl. A bald man with wild eyes helps her up and out of the way, then turns on the other man and punches him in the gut. I continue to move backward, working my way across the road. In my wake more desperate, panicked fights break out. Whether they’re trying to get away, trying to help each other, or trying to find me, it doesn’t matter-their reactions are all the same. They fight. And once they’ve started, they keep fighting. I force my way through the mob with relative ease, hacking and slicing at them only when I have to. All around me the Unchanged begin to turn on each other, and I’m quickly forgotten.

Breathless and bloody, I reach the front of the hotel. I cross the parking lot and climb the steps up to the door, forcing my way inside as several others force their way out. Christ, I feel weird-strangely invisible and high on a euphoric mix of adrenaline and nerves. If I am feeling any fear, it’s masked by the immense satisfaction, excitement, and relief of having just killed again. But as I disappear into the vast and dark building, a sudden wave of terror hits me. Lizzie might be here. She might be standing next to me for all I know, because I can hardly see anything. What was I thinking? How am I supposed to find her in here? Did I think I was just going to be able to walk up to the reception desk and ask for her room number? As I scout around the first floor, the full implications of my shortsighted lack of planning really hit home. This was a mistake. Time is running out. The city won’t last much longer, and my only remaining option is to check every damn room. For half a second I consider turning around and just wading back out into the crowds to enjoy the killing for as long as I’m able, but then I remember Ellis again, and I force myself to stay calm and stay in control. I know I don’t have any choice but to keep moving.

35

THE FIRST FLOOR OF the hotel is deserted, and it’s easy to see why. The carpet is soaked with water, and there’s a tidemark on the wall about eighteen inches off the ground. Wallpaper is hanging down in strips, and the whole place smells of rotting waste and untreated sewage. I thought there would be more people in here. I guess most of them were washed out with the floodwater that has obviously flowed through the building in the last couple of days. Others will have left when the fighting started. Am I too late? Has Lizzie already gone? Was she ever here at all?

I head back to the front of the hotel, feet squelching on the waterlogged carpet, then head upstairs. I climb the long, straight flight of steps to the second floor, knifing a fucker in the gut as he tries to barge past me and nearly sends me flying. I glance back and watch as he tumbles down the stairs, rolling over and over until he lands in a bloody, groaning heap at the very bottom.

I start checking the rooms on the second floor, but they’re empty. I’m halfway along the hall when a door flies open and three terrified Unchanged men come sprinting out, carrying as many bags and boxes of belongings as they can manage between them. They can’t see me over everything they’re carrying, and one of them knocks me to the ground. Instinctively I get up and start running after them, but it’s too late and they’re already gone. Doesn’t matter. Have to concentrate. Have to focus. Let them go.

The next three doors are open, and the rooms are empty. They’re foul, squalid places, full of the residue of the refugees who’ve been forced to live here together for weeks on end. The carpets are covered with a layer of waste and abandoned belongings, so deep that I don’t see the curled-up body of an elderly man until I feel the fingers of his outstretched hand crack under my boot.

Back out in the hall, I force myself to slow down. Need to try to apply some logic here. The hotel’s emptying, so there’s no point checking any of the vacant rooms. If any of the doors aren’t locked, I decide, there’s no one there.

I start hacking at the lock and hinges of the next door I find that’s still shut. I can already hear the bastards inside the room screaming with panic. I keep working on the door, shoulder-charging it open when I’ve done enough damage to loosen the latch. One of the occupants runs at me, brandishing a chair leg. I sidestep him, then shove him across the hall, sending him crashing into the wall opposite. There are three other Unchanged in the room, with a fourth trying to get out through an open window. The light’s low, but I see enough to know that I don’t recognize any of them and they’re of no interest. I turn and head back out to the hallway, pausing only to knife the fucker who comes back at me for a second go with the chair leg.

The lock on the door of the next room is broken, but it’s held on a chain. It opens just far enough for me to see inside. No sign of Lizzie. A gray-haired woman grabs hold of the door handle and pulls it shut, snatching it from my hands. Another room empties as I approach, and this time I just press myself back against the wall and let two more sobbing Unchanged stumble past.

Almost all of the third floor is empty, and Lizzie’s not in any of the rooms that are still occupied. In a room near the staircase on the fourth floor I find a small girl sitting alone in an armchair that dwarfs her tiny shape. In my haste and desperation I think for a second that it might be Ellis. It’s dark, the dull dawn light just beginning to seep in through the cracks between the wooden boards that have been nailed across the window. It’s only when I touch the girl and she slumps out of the chair that I see it isn’t Ellis, and it’s only when she lies at my feet and doesn’t move again that I realize she’s already dead, abandoned by whoever she was with.

The door to the last room on this floor is open slightly, but it slams shut as I run toward it. I shove it open before it’s locked. Three Unchanged women and a man begin shouting and screaming at me in a language I don’t understand. Sounds like Polish or Russian or something… I turn and leave, and one of them follows me back out into the corridor, still shouting. She grabs hold of my legs, pleading with me for help. I kick her off and keep moving.

Top floor. Running out of options.

There are more locked doors up here than I’ve got time for. I stop outside the first. I can hear voices inside, so I start chopping at the lock with my axe, my arms beginning to feel heavy and numb with effort. The rotten wood splinters easily, and the door flies open, but Lizzie’s not here, and I move on. I can feel their relief when I turn my back. The door slams shut, and I hear them shoving furniture up against it to seal themselves in.

Two doors facing each other are both shut. I jump the sprawled-out body of a Chinese man and press myself up against the first of them. I can hear a man’s voice ranting in Urdu or Punjabi or similar, so I immediately turn my attention to the other and start chopping at the wood around the latch. I stop for a second when I hear another deafening explosion outside, a flash of white lighting everything up like a strobe. It’s impossible to gauge the distance, but that sounded close. Too close. I can still feel the vibrations through my feet as I start chopping again. This door is more stubborn than most. It’s newer than the others, probably recently replaced. I guess I’m not the first person to have to try to break into a room here. I grunt with effort as I hammer the door again and again, desperate to get through.